Had to put in my orders at the recycling center again as I look at my supply of empties and my supply of batches going and #2 out weighed #1 by quite a bit! So i asked the guys at both recycling centers ( my town and the next town over) to save me all the standard size they can get. We'll see on Sat. how I do.
Recycle Center
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NorthernWinos
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The things we go through for empty bottles.
I have a friend who lives near another friends supper club, he and his girlfriend go to their recycling bins and get us bottles when we need them...then we drive 125 miles to see them, have lunch, visit friends and then turn around come home....It is also a good excuse to touch base with our old neighborhood and buddies.
Yesterday we went on a garage sale tour...looking for canning jars....There was a state wide sale down Hiway 75...441 miles of sales...we got up at 5 AM...got as far as Fargo as it was pouring rain and the sales weren't so good...went to WalMart and bought some jars and came home....Spent many $$$ on diesel fuel in the pickup...did get a few goodies and only 3 dozen used jars...was fun tho.Edited by: Northern Winos
I have a friend who lives near another friends supper club, he and his girlfriend go to their recycling bins and get us bottles when we need them...then we drive 125 miles to see them, have lunch, visit friends and then turn around come home....It is also a good excuse to touch base with our old neighborhood and buddies.
Yesterday we went on a garage sale tour...looking for canning jars....There was a state wide sale down Hiway 75...441 miles of sales...we got up at 5 AM...got as far as Fargo as it was pouring rain and the sales weren't so good...went to WalMart and bought some jars and came home....Spent many $$$ on diesel fuel in the pickup...did get a few goodies and only 3 dozen used jars...was fun tho.Edited by: Northern Winos
PolishWineP
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I too had to snag some jars from Wal-Mart yesterday. Bert filled them with crab apple juice.
NorthernWinos
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I got 10 more empty jars today when I mixed up the Chokecherry wine....could have juiced up some frozen berries and made the batch of wine, but jars are prettyneeded with all the tomatoes, gapes and another tree of apples out there.
Will gain 10 more when I mix up the next batch of wine....I feel like I'm working in a factory.
We are very fortunate to have so much bounty to preserve....and we are lucky that WalMart still has jars in stock.
Sounds like PWP and Bert enjoy their juicer....
Edited by: Northern Winos
Will gain 10 more when I mix up the next batch of wine....I feel like I'm working in a factory.
We are very fortunate to have so much bounty to preserve....and we are lucky that WalMart still has jars in stock.
Sounds like PWP and Bert enjoy their juicer....
Got another 48 today and just finished cleaning and delabeling them with Straight A cleanser. Man this stuff is great and really takes most of them off with out touching thm but there still are those labels that are impenetrable to anything and thats where the scraper blade comes in. I spoke with a guy there that just switched from weekend duty to full time and he said he save them for a whole week for me so next Saturday should be interesting!!!!!!!! I might not need any Masta after this guy. He saved 36 in just 5 hours today and he going to be there everyday all day through out the week and all day Sat. I think I will have to make a few trips cause I dont have my pick up truck any more.
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My wife's younger brother works in a recycle center also. I asked him in the past to save out some bottles as needed. They can keep out the better bottles and discard the broken/chipped/cracked ones. Our place doesn't charge for the bottles. He says it saves the landfill money because even though they are supposed to be recycled, they are ground into a fine sand sized glass and put in the landfill. A few bottles of well placed good wine do wonders in keeping evryone happy!
With all my trash. I was getting rid of all my trash when I saw a few wine bottles on top and thought of how I just paid about $14.00 for a case of empties. I was just grabbing them out myself until last year when my winemaking exceeded the rate at which I can retrieve them so I asked the guys there. ! of the guys just grabs a few here and there but this year I went to the town next to me where they have a very Exclusive elderly living home and these old folks must be living it up over there cause the bottles are rolling in when I ask him to save me some. I think Im in for a whopper this coming Sat. Ill bring my camara just for you!
Sorry everyone, I was supposed to bring the camera to photo all the bottles that I received today but i forgot as I was in a hurry as I had to bring my kids to a birthday party and I was supposed to take pics there also. oh well, I filled the trunk of my car and just finished washing and delabeling them a few minutes ago and I started around 2:30. Had a batch soaking in the sink and another big batch in the tub and repeated 3 times. I received 137 bottles today and only had to throw out 3 as 2 had chips out of them from being thrown in to the recycling center bin and 1 was a twist off and corking a twist off is risky. Have done it in the past and opened with no problem but dont want to push my luck with that. My hands are so pruned right now but they are as clean as a new born.
Good for you Wade. It is fairly easy to get bottles from centers like you go to, bars, restaurants and even wineries.
My friend and I go to 3 different wineries around the area and get about 25 cases a week between the 2 of us. We'll do this for a few months to get our inventories up then top for a while. Right now I have about 90 cases of good cleaned de-labeled bottles.
Now to get that dang freezer emptied!
My friend and I go to 3 different wineries around the area and get about 25 cases a week between the 2 of us. We'll do this for a few months to get our inventories up then top for a while. Right now I have about 90 cases of good cleaned de-labeled bottles.
Now to get that dang freezer emptied!
NorthernWinos
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Jobe....hope you show us all the wines you make with all that freezer fruit you have....Sounds like fun to me.
I juiced up a lot of fruit this summer, so have many jars of juices to make wines with...the freezer still has some in there too....Like money in the bank!!!....Well..not quite the same.
I juiced up a lot of fruit this summer, so have many jars of juices to make wines with...the freezer still has some in there too....Like money in the bank!!!....Well..not quite the same.
90 cases Jobe, good lord. The winery that is pretty close to me has labels that are the most stubborn labels that there are on Earth which really stinks as I work only 2 miles from it and would be able to pick up every friday and have all my bottles the same. What do you do to delabel all these, throw them in the pool?
Edited by: wade
Edited by: wade
They were delabeled over a period of time of course, not all at once. Also, that 90 cases does not include what I have already bottled and what my friend has at his house (that are his so they don't count). It's easy to get that many when you can get 10 to 15 cases (each of us) a week. Some weeks when I know I'm not going to have time I just throw away the bottle types that I have enough of.
I can soak about 3 cases at a time in 1/2 of my laundry sink that I have in the wine room. I can tell from experience which labels come right off and which ones will need soaking, so I put a case of stubborn ones on the bottom and load the last 2 cases with labels that come off easy. I let them sit for a couple of hours and when I go down to clean them, the labels on the easy ones literally fall off into the water. So I would say on 10 cases, 4 cases the labels fall right off, 4 cases the labels peel off but leave a little glue that a green scrubby pad takes right off with a couple of swipes and then there are 2 cases where the label comes off and leaves what seems like an inch of glue behind that I have to scrape with the back of a knife then scrub with a green scrubby. Then there is the occasional champaign bottle with the foil label that water will not touch!
I clean the bottle with "Oxyclean Versatile". It comes in a small tub and I add 2 scoops per load of bottles. It is oxyclean with laundry (type) soap in it so it suds up a little bit, not much. After de-labeling and cleaning, I rinse in hot water and hang on the bottle tree to dry, then box up and store. I found that this removes the labels and glue the best for me, and it's relatively cheap. Then I do a B Brite cleansing and sanitizing before bottling.
I can soak about 3 cases at a time in 1/2 of my laundry sink that I have in the wine room. I can tell from experience which labels come right off and which ones will need soaking, so I put a case of stubborn ones on the bottom and load the last 2 cases with labels that come off easy. I let them sit for a couple of hours and when I go down to clean them, the labels on the easy ones literally fall off into the water. So I would say on 10 cases, 4 cases the labels fall right off, 4 cases the labels peel off but leave a little glue that a green scrubby pad takes right off with a couple of swipes and then there are 2 cases where the label comes off and leaves what seems like an inch of glue behind that I have to scrape with the back of a knife then scrub with a green scrubby. Then there is the occasional champaign bottle with the foil label that water will not touch!
I clean the bottle with "Oxyclean Versatile". It comes in a small tub and I add 2 scoops per load of bottles. It is oxyclean with laundry (type) soap in it so it suds up a little bit, not much. After de-labeling and cleaning, I rinse in hot water and hang on the bottle tree to dry, then box up and store. I found that this removes the labels and glue the best for me, and it's relatively cheap. Then I do a B Brite cleansing and sanitizing before bottling.
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